Whatsapp to introduce voice messaging and make calls redundant too

CROSS PLATFORM MESSAGING SERVICE Whatsapp might be about to introduce a voice messaging service as it looks to kill the phone call as well as the SMS.

That's according to 9to5Mac, which has seen an email from Whatsapp that seems to suggest the feature is coming.

An email from the Whatsapp translation team to a Hong Kong developer said, "Thank you for translating Whatsapp into Chinese. We have added some new strings that have yet to be translated: Camera button off, Camera button on and Push-to-talk button."

As well as suggesting that users might soon be able to take pictures from within the app, the email - along with a leaked screenshot of the updated app obtained by 9to5Mac - seems to suggest that Whatsapp is gearing up to launch a voice messaging feature.

Informa revealed the growing popularity of app messaging services on Monday, revealing that 19.1 million messages were sent through services like Whatsapp each day last year, compared to 17.6 million SMS messages.

This popularity is only likely to grow, as the research firm estimated that by the end of this year 41 billion instant messages will be sent every day, compared with an average of 19.5 billion SMS texts.